


There's No Wonder in Grief

by AnnCherie



Category: DCU, Titans (TV 2018)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2021-01-05 11:29:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21207803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnCherie/pseuds/AnnCherie
Summary: post 2x08an exploration of Donna's grief and guilt between Dick and Deathstroke





	There's No Wonder in Grief

* * *

“I don’t think I ever realized how alike you were,” Hank snaps as the three of them ride the elevator down the Tower together for the last time. Dawn’s managed to hide her pain in silence just like Donna’s trying to, but Hank was always emotions first. No mask. Ironic, considering their costumes.

“Hank, stop–,” Dawn interrupts, but as usual he continues, glaring down Donna. “I get it. Grieving via anger. We’ve all been there. But you two sure put icing on the cake when it comes to revenge, huh? Couldn’t just leave the kid alone.”

Donna’s twisted and ripped open the metal doors of the elevator the second the machine touches the next floor, not bothering to listen to Hank’s anger or Dawn’s pacifying guilt before she takes an inhuman leap away from the Tower that was almost a home.

* * *

With the death of Jillian, Diana is in the city already. Donna’s missed a call and three texts from her on the way to her hotel room. Maybe a part of her wants Diana to storm down the Tower and find Dick before Bruce does. Give him the open empathy that Donna is just too weak and drained to give. She knows Dick deserves far more than a well wish and place to crash, but all she can see when she looks at him is the broken expression of a man who witnessed death yet again.

_It’s my fault._

“Donna,” Diana breathes as she pulls her into an embrace that would crack the ribs of a normal human, the second the taxi stops in front of the hotel and Donna gets out. She isn’t even sure how the woman appeared without her noticing, even if she has educated guesses. Diana’s super speed and Donna’s shell-shocked dissociation were a natural conclusion.

She holds it together, somehow, even when faced with the kind brown eyes of the one person in the world she wanted to be and now knew she never would. Diana pulls her gently by the arm, a gesture to the taxi and bell man, and walks her with physical support through the hotel lobby and hallway. Donna knows Diana can assess her wounds in the way she looks, walks, and breathes. Her jaw is still bruised, her arm still weak with gashes, her back an open cut. A normal human would be dead. This month more than any, she almost wishes she had been a normal human.

They reach the suite together, and Donna holds onto her tears tighter the second the door is closed, because she knows Diana won’t have to use a lasso for her entire soul to fall open. Only two people in the world could break down her mask, and the other was a few miles away. 

She can’t sit. She paces around while Diana quietly watches her and makes tea. Donna only has a few moments of silence before the tea is done and Diana is finished being patient. They sit down together on the couch, and that’s all it takes.

“Garth died because of me,” she starts with a broken sob, as if no time had passed. “He died because I couldn’t tell him the truth and now more people are dead because I couldn’t just–,”

_A stupid soda bottle and the guilt of not loving a childhood friend in the same way, not knowing how to just shut him up without deciding to just leave to Themysciria early had started this, hadn’t it? If she had told him she didn’t feel the same way, or at the very least if she hadn’t slept with him, he wouldn’t have been behind Jillian at the airport, would he? He wouldn’t be dead. He wouldn’t be the reason so much bloodshed–_

“Shhh,” Diana coaxes, arms around her again, but they both know she’s only trying to quiet the pain. 

“I should have said something. I should have told Dick that Dawn was wrong, that Batman wasn’t what we needed.” she cries. “I was supposed to be you.”

_A conscience. Wonder Woman was supposed to be the conscience to Batman’s hard logic, wasn’t she? Donna had heard the stories from Diana’s now elderly war buddies about how Steve Trevor had sacrificed himself in the middle of battle and Diana had chosen love. Diana would always change the subject if she was around, but Donna couldn’t forget it. It’s why she had been inspired to be just like her. Choosing love when faced with grief. Not revenge and hatred and deception._

“No, Donna, no,” is the fervent response. “Do not do that to yourself.”

“He was almost killed because he saw me hurt,” Donna continues, her pain jumping all over the place to the freshest wound. “He tried to kill because he saw me hurt.”

_If she had only explained to the team what Jillian had shown her, if she hadn’t tried to take on Deathstroke herself… she had felt too guilty knowing that Garth’s death was even more her fault than Slade’s._

“He loves you, Donna,” the woman who is more mother than sister tells her, brushing her tears like she’s a child again. “You love each other fiercely in a way not many could understand. You are in heart his sister, but his actions because of his love are not your cross to bear.”

_Fires. Falls. Funerals that left each other alone, busy adopted parents that left them even lonelier. They were the only thing she had been sure about in the world and she had laid waste to his trust even if he’d never admit it. _

“He blames himself, but I’m the one who egged him on. I’m the one who used him because I felt guilty and angry about Garth. What does that make me?”

“Human,” Diana answers softly. “Time will ease things, sweet Donna, I promise. I will make sure Bruce watches him.”

“Bruce?” Donna scoffs through her tears.

“Alfred, mostly.” Diana smiles sadly. “And I, and Kal El. Right now it is my duty to watch over you.”

“I can’t be Wondergirl anymore,” Donna listlessly remarks. “I can’t– I’m not her. I’m not you.”

Diana gives only one small, sad, understanding nod before kissing her on the forehead. “You are more than good enough as Donna Troy.”

_Maybe in some amount of years she’ll believe that._

* * *


End file.
